Troy Aikman: Playing quarterback harder than it's ever been

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Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer

Festivities commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11 prior to kickoff of the Dallas Cowboys vs. the New York Jets National Football League season opener at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Sunday, September 11, 2011.

Former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman talked with the Musers on KTCK-AM Thursday. Here are a few highlights:

On Super Bowls being
the measuring stick for Cowboy quarterbacks:

I wonder what my legacy would have been if I had put up
great numbers and had not won a Super Bowl. I don’t know what the expectation
of the fan would then have been. It’s easy now to look back on it because Roger
was able to win a couple of Super Bowls, they went to a couple more, then I was
able to win three Super Bowls … I think that became the standard moving
forward because of what the Cowboys in the ‘70s had done, what Roger had done,
and then we kind of backed that up in the ‘90s. Is it fair? I don’t know. I said
from day one when I arrived in Dallas,
Jerry Jones didn’t draft me where he did and they didn’t pay me what they did
to throw for 4,000 yards. And I think when it’s all said and done, ownership
couldn’t care less how many yards anybody throws for. They want to win a world
championship. I know that’s what Jerry Jones wants.

On if the quarterback
position is more difficult today than it was when he played:

I would agree that it’s harder to play [quarterback] today
than it’s ever been, and the fan really does not understand what all you have
to go through as a quarterback and the information that you have to process in
a short period of time. And here’s what I always go back to: football’s a complicated
game. There’s a reason why when you go back after a game and ask a coach, “How
didn’t so-and-so play?” they always say, “Well, we’ll have to go back and watch
the tape.” And they really do. You really don’t know in real time how anybody
overall played. You have an idea – this guy missed a block, or this receiver
ran the wrong route. But to really understand how someone’s played, you’ve got
to go back and watch the film.

Yet the quarterback is the one player on the field that
every fan, whether you’re watching it on TV or you’re watching it from the
stadium, they know when they leave the stadium how that quarterback played. And
that’s because he either completed the pass, or he didn’t complete it. He
either threw for touchdowns, or he threw for interceptions. But if the ball’s hitting
the ground, it’s got to be the quarterback’s fault. Nobody will say, “Well, maybe
that wide receiver didn’t do anything he was supposed to do.” And I’m not
apologizing for the position, I’m not making excuses, it’s just part of it. And
so as a quarterback, you tend to take a lot of criticisms that sometimes are
unjustified, and you just take it. You don’t try to make excuses for why. I think
that within the locker room, when you do that, then you gain the respect of
those that you’re playing with.

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